Tesla vs. New York Times, Round 2: Musk Releases Test Drive Records

A flame war started earlier this week when Telsa Motors founder Elon Musk accused a New York Times test drive of the Model S of being "fake," and promised to release the car's data log to prove his point. Last night, he released those numbers in a blog post.

After accusing a recent New York Times story of misrepresenting the range capabilities of the Tesla Model S and its network of ultrafast Supercharger charging stations, Tesla CEO and co-founder Elon Musk delivered on his promise to release the data logs of the Times's test drive in a blog post late last night.

The drive, conducted and written by Times writer John Broder, was meant to test the capabilities of both the Model S and the nascent network of Supercharger stations on the East Coast. After battling with range anxiety on the first leg of the trip from suburban Washington D.C. to Milford, Conn., Broder's Model S reportedly ran out of power 17 miles short of the closest Supercharger station.

In his blog post Musk offers a few "key points" where the car's data logs reportedly contradict the Times's account.

"As the State of Charge log shows, the Model S battery never ran out of energy at any time, including when Broder called the flatbed truck."

According to the the story, after Broder's Model S ran out of juice, the car informed him it was shutting down and engaged the parking brake. Even plugging in the 12-volt charger to the tow truck reportedly wouldn't awaken the car. Tesla's claim that the car never ran out of energy at any time is factually true—as the chart above indicates. However, according to the Model S Owner's Guide the car has safeguards to stop it from fully discharging the battery, and enters a "low-power consumption mode" once the charge level drops below 5 percent—which roughly lines up with Tesla's own data.

"The final leg of his trip was 61 miles and yet he disconnected the charge cable when the range display stated 32 miles. He did so expressly against the advice of Tesla personnel and in obvious violation of common sense."

Here, the Times and Musk directly contradict each other. Broder writes: "Tesla's experts said that pumping in a little energy would help restore the power lost overnight as a result of the cold weather, and after an hour they cleared me to resume the trip to Milford." Though curiously—as Musk points out and the Times's own timeline of events support—Broder manages to travel 51 miles despite the car's range estimate of 32—contradictory of the rest of the trip where the Model S consistently fell short of its own range estimates.

"Cruise control was never set to 54 mph as claimed in the article, nor did he limp along at 45 mph. Broder in fact drove at speeds from 65 mph to 81 mph for a majority of the trip and at an average cabin temperature setting of 72 F.

In the story Broder says that at "68 miles since recharging" his range dropped by 85 miles, and in an effort to make it to Milford "began following Tesla's range-maximization guidelines"—setting the cruise control to 54 and turning the climate to "low." According to Broder's story this would have happened around mile 182 of his trip, and as Tesla's annotated chart shows, in terms of speed it did not. Through looking at Tesla's < target="_blank">climate control data, it appears Broder drove the Model S with the heat below 72 F for a large portion of the trip.

"When he first reached our Milford, Connecticut Supercharger, having driven the car hard and after taking an unplanned detour through downtown Manhattan to give his brother a ride, the display said '0 miles remaining.' Instead of plugging in the car, he drove in circles for over half a mile in a tiny, 100-space parking lot. When the Model S valiantly refused to die, he eventually plugged it in. On the later legs, it is clear Broder was determined not to be foiled again."

As Jalopnik points out, this is one of Tesla's weaker claims. A rough mapping shows it's certainly possible to travel about .6 miles without exceedingly driving in circles. Unlike the gas pumps, the Supercharger station at the Milford rest area is at two converted parking spots—and even a direct route is still a little over a quarter of a mile. Whether or not Broder's search for the charging station was intentionally long, only he can say.

Although Tesla's data isn't exactly the smoking gun Musk said it was earlier this week, it potentially calls into question both parties—Broder's account doesn't exactly line up with some of Tesla's numbers, while Musk's response seems inflammatory, asserting that Broder's alleged factual inaccuracies are evidence of a deliberate attempt to soil the Model S, Tesla, and EVs in general. "When the facts didn't suit his opinion, he simply changed the facts," Musk wrote.

Broder posted his own response to Musk's accusations on Twitter—albeit before Musk released the data. Driving data can help illustrate driving behavior—Broder was clearly speeding, and did not fully charge at the Milford Supercharger station—but it can't explain what was going on in the driver's head, and in the end it's Times's word versus Tesla's.

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